Christmas Traditions Growing Up

Growing up we didn't have a lot of Christmas traditions.  Steven and I both come from simple families, and simple times.  We didn't do advent calendars or Elf on the Shelf.  We didnt have Pinterest or unlimited access to Google.  I can't speak for Steven (because I am the one writing this), but my parents gave us a handful of experiences and those few experiences were enough.  We didnt need anything grand.   The things they did for us are things that i still treasure to this day.

(1) Annual Forrest City Christmas Parade
I grew up in a small town with small town people.  You knew Christmas had arrived when the city put up those gaudy decorations on light poles from McDonalds all the way down to the train tracks.  Every year there was a Christmas Parade that started at the Civic Center and ended at First Baptist Church.  People would line the streets to watch the high school band march, the girl scouts walk, the cheerleaders shake their pom poms, the various floats, and to see Santa at the end.  His elves threw out candy and you lived for the moment you could put your Christmas letter in the mailbox on his float!  We went every year and it was the most exciting thing ever.

(2) Finding the Perfect Tree
An artificial tree is against my daddy's religion.  He would rather NOT have a Christmas tree than to display an artificial one in his living room.  Thankfully he loves me enough not to disown me for the 9ft of perfectly shaped, perfectly pre-lit  plastic beautifulness in my living room! Most years we would go to the tree farm in Colt and find the perfect tree.  A man would come and cut it down, shake it out, and wrap a net around it so we could take it home on top of our car.  Other years when money was slim, we would traipse through the woods behind our house with a saw in hand, pick one out, cut it down, and the entire family would drag it back to the house.  After soaking and trimming and shaking, it would finally be erected in our living room.  Mom did the lights and the beads and we got to hang the ornaments wherever we wanted.  Thankfully my mother wasnt as OCD as I am and really would let us put them anywhere we wanted, though she did teach us the proper spacing technique and reminded us that ornaments should never touch.  From this point on our house was filled with the smell of fresh pine....and that is what my dad lived for.  Artificial trees can't produce that and he still reminds me of that to this day.

(3) Christmas Lights
Usually a few days before Christmas my parents would load us up into our 1994-96 Chevy Conversion van (you guys: a van isnt a van until it has curtains, a closet, a mini fridge, and the backseat folds down into a bed... #justsaying).  We would drive around Beech Grove and Washington Heights looking at Christmas lights while listening to our favorite Christmas cassette tape. (Now I feel like an old lady telling about my life as a young whipper snapper).  It wasnt a big thing, but it was big to us.

(4) Christmas Eve at Grandma's.
Out of the five traditions my family has, the next two Im going to share are hands down my favorite.  As an adult, it is something that I have come to value more than I can express in words and it is an experience that I will never be able to replicate for my children.   It is an experience I hold near and dear to my heart and something I will treasure for as long as I live.

Christmas Eve was spent at Grandmas.  My mother is one of NINE children.... all of who (minus one) lived in our small town.  Seven of those children all had two children (some of which had children) - and then there were four of us.  If you did the math, there were around 52 people at my Grandmother's small three bedroom home on Laughrun Drive on Christmas Eve.  The most giant pot of vegetable soup was served with cornbread.  Her tree would be decorated with real candy canes and there was a stocking hung for every grand kid, along with a small gift for every kid under the age of 18.  The adults would smoke cigarettes and play card games in the kitchen while we played in the playroom or played a fierce game of freeze tag out in the yard.  We looked forward to going to grandma's because there were so many people to play with and we had so much fun!!!  Every family that walked through the door brought a gift for my grandmother and she got to open her gifts that night after all of the kids opened their gifts from her.  We loved watching our grandma open her gifts.  She was so careful and never ripped a single piece of wrapping paper.  If the paper was extra beautiful she was extra careful because she liked to save it.  My grandma was also incredibly grateful. It didnt matter if she received a $100 gift card or a 4x6 family photo - she was truly grateful for every gift she received and it showed on her face.

We would stay at her house until 10pm at least and before we went home, we got to take a candy cane off of her Christmas tree.  Many times I ended up leaving mine for Santa because we never seemed to have any cookies to set out for him. (Disclaimer: my siblings and i are sugar junkies so it was impossible to keep these in our house)  On our way home my parents would remind us that we needed to go straight to bed when we got home because Santa was coming.  They would point out a red flashing tower light and make us think it was Rudolph leading the sleigh.  Im pretty sure we fell asleep in the car on the way home.  My parents were smart people.... they knew what they were doing when they put us in a house full of 30 kids.  They knew we'd crash the second we got into the car.

(5) Christmas Day
Some of my cousins got to open their gifts on Christmas Eve, but not us.  Santa came on Christmas Eve and so there were NO presents under the tree (minus a few from mom and dad) until Christmas Day.  We would beg and beg our parents to let us open one thing - and once we got a little older they caved, but as children, they stood firm on "No presents until Christmas." We would wake up before the sun and beg my parents to let us open!  Many times they would humor us and roll out of bed, let us open, and then go back to sleep and let us play with our new toys until the sun actually came up.  Once everyone was awake and ready - it was back to Grandmother's House we went!  Our entire family (all 52 of us) would show up again for Christmas "dinner" (= lunch).  Grandma would make a giant pan of dressing and everyone else brought something with them.  It was THE ultimate potluck.  We ate and ate and ate. And played and played and played.  Most of the time we stayed through actual dinner and wouldnt go home until around 8pm.  Sometimes we'd go home for a nap/rest and then come back for dinner.  Either way: the entire day was spent at my grandma's with our massive family.  It didnt matter that we had to leave our Christmas haul at home and wait an entire day to enjoy our new toys - we got to play with our cousins all day and that was ok by us.

As we go into Christmas season with our own children, writing this has served as just such a good reminder to me.  When my children are 30 years old they wont have or even remember what they got for Christmas when they were 5, but they will remember what we did together.  and that's what matters :)